Pentagon furloughs planned at 11 days

The issue of furloughs has been looming over the Pentagon for months. | AP Photo

“It’s just unfortunate that many of those folks, civil servants or contractors, have to pay this price,” he told POLITICO. “The bottom line is the human cost of the inability of Congress and the administration to come to an agreement on a fiscal process is really one of the unfortunate byproducts.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said he doesn’t see an easy solution to the nation’s fiscal woes — and warned that furloughs may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Text Size

-

+

reset

“The pain from the first two rounds of President Obama's defense cuts are now being felt,” McKeon said in a statement. “Furloughs are just the beginning. Sequester's pain will intensify and strengthen. It will get far worse before it gets better.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, said furloughs are “exactly why I voted against sequestration — it will severely impact hardworking civilian DoD employees and put further strain on our community.”

“I have heard from business owners, restaurant employees, local leaders, and everyone in between who has told me how sequestration has impacted their lives,” he said in a statement. “The president promised Ohioans that sequestration wouldn’t happen. Unfortunately, he and the Senate have failed to meet the House on a solution to this mess that I opposed from the beginning. We cannot do it alone. We need the leadership of the president and the Senate to halt these furloughs and to inject stability back into our community.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said that “11 days is better than 22 days or even 14 days.”

“It’s still a decision that’s not optimal for the Pentagon or employees,” he said. “There have been a lot of funding decisions that have been called into question around sequestration. The decision underscores the tough choices that are a reality today. But it’s important that decisions, specifically choices that could be avoided, are not putting our military and employees at a disadvantage.”

Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), who also sits on the Armed Services Committee, called the furloughs an "unacceptable way to balance the budget." And he charged his Republican colleagues with "wasting time this week" with passing for the 37th time a repeal of President Barack Obama's healthcare law, rather than balancing the budget.

Republican lawmakers should focus on "common sense ways to turn off the sequester with balanced deficit reduction," rather than inflict more "unnecessary self-inflicted wounds" on the economy, Courtney said.

In North Carolina, a military-heavy state where civilian workers will be hard hit by furloughs, defense contractors said they’re not surprised by the furlough announcement.

“The North Carolina Defense Business Association and our member organizations have been expecting these furloughs to take place. We are thankful that the impact has been decreased from the original length of time to 11 days,” Executive Director Joy Thrash told POLITICO. “We know this will still have a negative impact on the government employees who are furloughed. We anticipate that it will have a direct impact on the communities around our installations as the employees cut back on discretionary spending.”

But since “employers, their employees and local communities have been preparing for the furloughs,” Thrash said, “we are hopeful they will endure the cutbacks that are being imposed on them.”

Juana Summers contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 8:07 a.m. on May 14, 2013.